Due to advances in computer and networking technology, the amount and variety of information that can be accessed through a computer continues to increase at an astounding rate. The Internet, in particular, has enabled computer users to access a wide variety of information from computers located all over the world.
As more and more computer users connect to networks such as the Internet, an astounding societal shift has occurred. Computer users, though physically separated from one another in different cities or states, or even on different continents, can now be linked together electronically to form a truly global community, commonly referred to as “cyberspace”. Within such a community, users have a need to interact with one another, and this desire for interaction has been one of the predominant forces driving the growth of the Internet.
Users are presented with a number of technologies for interacting with one another over a network. Electronic messaging, also referred to as “email”, enables users to send messages to one another much like one would send a paper letter to another person through regular postal service. Electronic bulletin boards permit users to post messages that can be read by anyone having access to the boards. Real-time discussion forums, also referred to as “chat rooms”, extend the concepts of electronic bulletin boards to permit users to view messages sent by other users in real time, i.e., while those messages are being typed. Groupware systems permit users to share information and work together as a group to further common goals, e.g., to permit users to collectively create documents and share comments about those documents.
Unlike the above-described network-based tools, conventional web browsers offer comparatively less interaction between users. Web browsers are typically used to access and view information stored on a segment of the Internet known as the World Wide Web. Such information is typically stored on the World Wide Web in the form of hypertext documents, which are typically collections of information formatted in a language known as the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Also, due to the immense popularity of the World Wide Web, many private networks also store information in the form of hypertext documents.
Practically any information can be represented in a hypertext document, whether represented as text, graphics, video, sound, animation, etc. However, given the vast resources available on the Internet and within private networks, it is often difficult for users of web browsers to locate useful hypertext documents, and thus useful information, without significant effort. Over time, a user may eventually gain a degree of expertise in locating information about a particular topic; however, whenever a user is first attempting to locate information about a new topic, the user often must weed through an extensive amount of unrelated and useless information before potentially valuable information is found.
Other users may have invested similar resources in developing an expertise in a particular topic, and it could be extremely helpful for new users to be able to benefit from those other users' past efforts to accelerate the development of their own expertise in the topic. However, with conventional web browsers, little or no collaboration features are supported to permit users to share resources as with other network-based collaboration tools.
More enterprising individuals may develop their own personal web sites if they have an interest in a particular topic, and may include a list of “hot links” that point to related hypertext documents containing potentially useful information on that topic. However, other users must first know where that user's web site is located to access hot links. Also, to be valuable, the owner of the web site must take the initiative to develop the web site and continuously update it over time to incorporate new useful information.
Another form of collaboration available to users of web browsers is HTML-based chat. Similar to non-HTML chat systems, HTML-based chat systems permit users to participate in ongoing on-line discussions in real time. An HTML-based chat system, however, differs from non-HTML chat systems in that the system generates and transmits chat session scripts as HTML documents, thus permitting users to access the scripts via a web browser, rather than through other dedicated software. With such a system, users are typically capable of participating in chat discussions, and are often permitted to retrieve profile information about other participating users such as their favorite links, home pages, personal information, etc.
However, viewing scripts from HTML-based chat systems is not particularly analogous to web browsing, since the content of the displayed scripts is dictated by the participants of the chat, instead of the author of a hypertext document. Chat scripts are also dynamic, and changing over time, rather than being preexisting and static like many hypertext documents. Furthermore, simply viewing a chat script typically modifies the script, since the addition or removal of a viewer of a chat script is typically reflected in the text of the script. Moreover, on-line chat systems typically require both the chat management and the document generation and transmission functions to be tightly integrated into a single application, which makes such systems impractical for viewing hypertext documents distributed throughout different locations on the Internet.
As a result, web browsing to date remains more or less a solitary activity, devoid of much of the interactivity supported by other network-based applications. Whereas conventional network-based applications permit users to share ideas and collaborate, users of web browsers are left on their own to plod through all of the resources on the Internet to locate potentially useful information. Considering the ever-present desire for more user interaction in cyberspace, the lack of interactivity supported by conventional web browsers often significantly limits user enjoyment and productivity. Therefore, a significant need exists for expanding the interactivity of web browsing over that supported by conventional web browsers and the like.